Gaza Herald _Fourteen-year-old Suhail Shalouf left his family’s displacement camp in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis to collect firewood, a basic necessity for cooking amid Gaza’s severe fuel shortages. He never returned alive.
His mother stood beside his body at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, struggling to comprehend the loss of her young son. Through tears, she called out to him and prayed that he would be among the people of Paradise.
According to Suhail’s aunt, Ranin Shalouf, the boy was unarmed and had no connection to the fighting. He had simply gone out to gather firewood so his family could cook.
“He went to get firewood so we could cook, eat and drink. He wasn’t going to fight. He had no weapon,” Ranin said while mourning beside his body.
For displaced families in Al-Mawasi, collecting wood has become a necessity as fuel and other basic supplies remain extremely difficult to obtain. Ranin questioned where the promised aid was and expressed disbelief that a 14-year-old child could be viewed as someone involved in fighting.
Her grief was compounded by the family’s repeated losses. She recalled that Suhail’s brother had been killed about a year earlier, leaving the family facing yet another funeral.
“Every day we say goodbye to another martyr,” she said, describing the exhaustion and anguish caused by repeated deaths within the family.
The family’s losses extend beyond Suhail and his brother, according to Ranin, who said other relatives have also been killed during the war.
She appealed to the outside world to pay attention to the suffering of Palestinian families, saying that people in Gaza continue to endure death, displacement and destruction day after day.
Suhail’s death has left behind a grieving mother, a devastated family and another painful reminder of the dangers civilians face while trying to secure even the most basic necessities.
For a child who left home simply to collect firewood, a routine task of survival became a journey from which he never returned.
